Rating: 
Summary: Halberstam favoritism, critism, and views reflect his biases
Review: Halberstam "Best and Brightest" book would raise sharp critism of military reporting, chain of command, and the ability to quantify "win or loss" progress reports; blistering critisms of the theory of containment and late recognition of western warfare tactics. Halberstam provided a bias favoritism of the Kennedy Administration protraying them as intellectual rationalist who recruited some of the most brillant academic minds to the team: McNamara, Bundy, and Rusk. Halberstam claims internal Intelligence battles would cause strong mistrust as he elaborates on state department visit to viet nam to gather accurate information relating to the Ma kong valley. Halberstam protrays Lyndon Johnson as the Vice President who assumed command of a group of brillant Kennedy staffers after Kennedy's assassination. Johnson would continue the war in Vietnam. Nixon would face political pressure to reduce America's military commitment and eventual return soldiers home.The philosophy of mutal destruction was starting to materialize. Nuclear weapon build up after the "Bay of Pigs" and the Cubian missile crisis caused increased military spending in long range and submarine mobile capability. Deterence through first strike destruction and strength caused the Russians to back down. Diem was not popular in America or Vietnam. The miltary would send advisors to train southern vietnam officers in western counter guerilla fighting tactics. Halberstam shared insight into the coup the killed Diem. Military Advisors increase from 3000 to 16000 increasing the inherit danger of becoming involved. Kennian strategy of containment of communism became popular with the Kennedy Administration following an Berlin era of the Cold war. The communist had taken China. Kennedy would feel Vietnam symbolized a stand against communism expansion. There was already a series of tensions or conflicts against communism: Berlin airlift, Korean War, China, and Yugoslavic Europe. General Max Taylor, Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe a war in Vietnam could be won using Ariel bombing. Drawing from experiences from the Korean war Taylor hoped to gain a victory within a year. The Vietcong did not rely on resource associated with Petroleum. They could blend in with the local population, remain mobile, and converge in massive shock force. The effectiveness of the bombing campaign in weaken the enemy was ineffective. General Taylor curtailed the usage of nuclear tactical weapons because he felt the could not be limited to a specific area and nuclear strike estimates of 300 million killed in one day caused him to fear the obliterative potential. At the end of the book, Nixon would start his ABM and Strategic reduction of global missile counts. Airstrikes required ground troop keeping bases open to attack the enemy. Airbases were key to continue the air offensive. As a result the philosophy of containment would be replace with "search and destroy" tactics. Weaken the enemy before they could attack. Special Forces would seek out strong hold pockets where the Vietcong resided an destroy them. Nixon launching operation Rolling Thunder would suggest a continued believe in the air offensive effectivenes but the "Tet Offensive" would demostrate remaining the strength of the Vietcong. Its surprising three administrations would struggle with foreign policy, political battles interfering with military campaigns, and confusion about western warfare tactics and objectives. A ground war was need with 500,000 fighting and more than 200,000 increase being requested. Traditional western warfare shock tactics and complete destruction strategies coming to late in the war. Conclusions, limited fighting could never work. Abandonment of the war took longer than the American public expected. Closure of the war was political regardless of military accessments of "wins". Military doctrine would never again believe in the philosophy of containment or political handcuffing. The Military commanders would seek better planning and design and freedom to fight a military war an not a political war.
Rating:
Summary: Has "Best and Brightest" lost its luster?
Review: Halberstam is obviously a very talented writer. He's one of the best in the business at character and personality descriptions. His portrayal of LBJ here is excellent. Johnson was a hilarious man.
But there are some problems here. This book reads like a first draft, not a final one. Halberstam didn't have a good editor to clean this up. Some passages meander way too long, the narrative is a little disorganized, and entire sections could have been removed. I'd say about one-third of the material here is unneccesary.
Also, Halberstam's hero worship of Ho is plain wierd. Ho was a terrible man who for example, executed over 100,000 without trial, but that's not the way he's portrayed here. My question for Halberstam would be if Uncle Ho was such a great leader, why did two million boat people try to escape from his rule?
And for Halberstam, there are no shades of grey when comparing the North and South Vietamese armies. The northern army is made up of heroes and patriots. The southern army is incompetent and corrupt. The Vietnam War was more complicated than that, but Halberstam doesn't want to hear any of that. The North are the "good guys," and the South are the "bad guys," and that's that.
Also, Halberstam's description of Westmoreland's strategy of the war is off target. He calls Westmoreland a conventional man who used conventional stategy in an unconventional war. Actually, Westmoreland was conventional man who used unconventional stategy. In Vietnam, he abandoned classic military doctrine of seizing territory in favor of attrition. Westmoreland's critics contend that a more conventional military strategy may have been more successful in Vietnam.
A fascinating, but flawed book. Basically, if you like communism and dictators, and despise freedom and democracy, this book is for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Required Reading
Review: Halberstam's book's most illuminating quote is attributed to one of Walt Rostow's (the chief architect of the US bombing of North Vietnam) Harvard colleagues. After his friend departed Cambridge, to take up his position the Kennedy administration, this colleague walked into a roomful of students, and said, more or less, "you never sleep as well at night when you actually know people running the country." This book is all about the men (the best and the brightest) who mired this nation in Vietnam. It's also about other men, men like John Peyton Davies, perhaps the State Department's best Asian expert, purged from public service after the McCarthy juggernaut swept through the country. It's also about applying the wrong lessons of history to wrong problems: Kennedy and Johnson learned from Munich that nations shrink from "tyranny" at their own peril, and therefore decided to confront the "tyranny" of North Vietnam communism, which, according to Halberstam, was simply nationalism -- the extension of their colonial wars of the 1950s. Men like Davies would have realized this, and then warned against intervention; but men like Davies, ostensibly "soft" on communism, had already been run out of Washington (during the Vietnam War, Davies, the man Halberstam uses to personify the flight of those who really understood the intentions of North Vietnam, was making furniture in Peru). Men like McNamara, the Bundys, and Dean Rusk, despite their rationalism and considerable mental horsepower, didn't get this. Nor did they understand how to bring themselves (and the country) back once they'd stepped beyond the brink. For all its quality and insight, the book makes a little much of the "establishment" credentials of the war's architects. It's as if Halberstam believes that, since these men came from storied Atlantic families, they were somehow doomed to err. It's likely that these credentials made these men arrogant; but I also believe that an administration filled with men self-made men, men who'd never known any family privilege, might easily have made the same mistakes as the McGeorge Bundys of the world. Still, this is a remarkable book. A side note: I think this book should be required reading for the business executives of today. This is where today's best and brightest operate, and they are capable of making the same sorts of mistakes. Look at the executives of Enron and WorldCom: Just like the men of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, they're capable of believing in their own infallibility just because everyone around them says it's so.
Rating:
Summary: The best of its genre, EVER
Review: I am a political history junkie. I read everything I can get my hands on that deals with that subject. And Halberstam's book is, IMHO, simply the best book ever written in that category. He analyzes our involvement in Viet Nam by analyzing the personalities, motivations, and fears of the individuals who made the decisions. This results in a far more human approach to the subject than is usually found in books of this kind - and in my opinion leads to a more accurate depiction of what happened. And the writing - Oh, the writing! I read this book 25 years ago, and I can still remember full paragraphs almost word for word. In one page of well chosen anecdotes, he can brilliantly bring to life a Lyndon Johnson or a Robert MacNamara, and make the reader feel as if he knew those public figures personally. Even if you're not as interested in the Viet Nam war or political history as I am, this book should be on your reading list. The word "great" is properly reserved for a very small number of works, but "The Best and the Brightest" belongs in that category.
Rating:
Summary: Probably better to read the book
Review: I bought this by mistake (I wanted the book) but thought I would listen to it anyway. Clennon's efforts to sound like JFK, LBJ, & others adds a measure of irritation to an abridgement that lacks continuity and color. There's no time to examine any particular character in detail so we are left with glosses, poor impersonations and an endless sequence of "reports"
Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books on the war.
Review: I first read the book a good many years ago while doing extensive reading on the Vietnam War; since then, I have re-read it two more times.
No matter what your position on the worthyness/unworthyness of the war, its' causes, or its' outcome, the book is an invaluable source. No one's understanding of the war can be complete without having read this book.
Halberstam was one of many media journalists of one type or another who got his professional start while reporting from Vietnam; the best of these quickly learned not to accept the official version of events, and instead relied on their own legwork to try to sort out the actual truth of the progress of the war and the true background of the forces driving the war effort.
Unlike many books on the Vietnam war, Halberstam relied on a myriad of original sources for his information; he interviewed <everyone> involved, and crafted the most complete account of what motivated the war effort we are ever likely to have.
Rating:
Summary: Simply a fantastic read for those interested in history.
Review: I found this book, simply, to be a fantastic read. It represents the antithesis of today's instant news - instant analysis world. The people, places, thoughts and finally decisions made are completely fleshed out. Most importantly, the book shows how the key players were influenced by their times (Korea,China,McArthy,etc.) and how their decisions influenced an entire country and its people.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book on Vietnam War
Review: I had to read this book for a history class I took in college. We only had two weeks to get through it, and I remember thinking it was such a great book that I'd like to read it again when I had more time, so I could enjoy it. I've read it a few more times since then, and it is probably the best non-fiction book I've ever read.
Halberstam, who has never written a bad book, gives us a fascinating look at the brilliant people who made up the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and shows us how these brilliant people made some horrible errors to get us deeper and deeper into the war. The book is filled with great anecdotes about these people, but it's not just about how the brilliant people screwed up. It also includes some heroic figures, like George Ball, who often found himself fighting against all of the others to try to convince the president to get out of Vietnam.
If you've never read anything by Halberstam do yourself a favor and buy this book. This was the first book I read by him, and ever since the first time I read this one, I've been buying everything I can find by him. I've never been disappointed yet.
Some of his best other books are:
October 1964 (baseball)
The Powers That Be (journalism)
The Children (Civil Rights)
The Teammates (baseball)
The Fifties (history)
Summer of '49 (baseball)
Breaks of the Game (basketball)
The Reckoning (the auto industry)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book on Vietnam War
Review: I had to read this book for a history class I took in college. We only had two weeks to get through it, and I remember thinking it was such a great book that I'd like to read it again when I had more time, so I could enjoy it. I've read it a few more times since then, and it is probably the best non-fiction book I've ever read. Halberstam, who has never written a bad book, gives us a fascinating look at the brilliant people who made up the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and shows us how these brilliant people made some horrible errors to get us deeper and deeper into the war. The book is filled with great anecdotes about these people, but it's not just about how the brilliant people screwed up. It also includes some heroic figures, like George Ball, who often found himself fighting against all of the others to try to convince the president to get out of Vietnam. If you've never read anything by Halberstam do yourself a favor and buy this book. This was the first book I read by him, and ever since the first time I read this one, I've been buying everything I can find by him. I've never been disappointed yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential for anyone studying National Security Affairs
Review: I listened to the book on tape to supplement my reading for class. It was VERY interesting and I learned a lot about the personalities involved in the United States government during the Vietnam War. Well read, good book to listen to on tape.
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